How a $130 Bottle of Pappy Van Winkle Became Worth $5,000

A wheated bourbon from a defunct distillery became liquor's biggest mania, allocated by lottery, flipped like real estate, and counterfeited in growing numbers. We tell the full story: the Stitzel-Weller origins, the 23-year aging gamble, the secondary market chaos, and whether the pour justifies any of it. Bourbon's tulip mania, bottled.